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Talk:You Are Not Alone/@comment-3575890-20140525131945
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of the Vampire Academy film adaptation: ''' '''The good: - Rose Hathaway being every bit of a sassy, sarcastic, hilarious bamf as she was in the books. I have to say that Zoey completely nailed it. My only complaint would be that she is too tiny to be believable as a physically adept Strigoi-Killing/Moroi-Protecting-Machine and from the neck down, she really doesn't match Rose's physical description in the book, but besides that small grievance of mine, I am extremely happy with her casting. - Lissa, being my favorite, was the one character I was most hopeful that the movie would get right, and I really think they (mostly) did. Lucy Fry did the part justice! I never initially imagined Lissa to have a British accent, but now I can't imagine it any other way. Lucy's Lissa is regal, elegant, refined, and sophisticated. Just as I pictured her. - Rose and Lissa's friendship is arguably the most important aspect of the whole franchise and thankfully, the film got it mostly right. Lucy and Zoey's natural chemistry translates beautifully onscreen in the dynamic of Rose and Lissa'a friendship. The film did a good job with illustrating the concordance between their contrasting personalities, the similarities and dissimilarities between them, as well as, most importantly, the love between them. I never once found their bond to be forced or implausible - as either best friends or as soul mates. - Lissa/Christian, despite how rushed they were in this adaptation, had the chemistry I had so hoped to see; them being my OTP and all. Although there are definitely some changes I would have made (and I'll get into that later), I can't complain too much about the translation of their romance from book to screen. - Christian Ozera. I had wanted Nic Hoult to play him, but this actor did a great job embodying Christian's cryptic, sardonic persona and pretty much fit the exact physical description from the book and the one I had in my head. - Sarah Hyland was perfect as quirky, idiosyncratic Natalie Dashkov. That is, until post-transition Strigoi, in which shoddy writing and terrible dialogue quickly dampens her performance. - Perhaps my positive bias towards Ian Gallagher somewhat influences my opinion of Cameron's portrayal of Mason, but I felt that Mason was perfectly cast and that Cameron embodied the role wonderfully. As a bonus, the friendship between Mason and Rose felt very natural and believable as well. -The scenic atmosphere may as well have been extracted straight from my imagination. The academy looked exactly as I pictured it. The bad: - The changes made with Lissa and Christian's relationship development. The way they were just thrown together at the dance was such a sloppy execution. I will never understand why all of their original build up and development was eradicated for such a rushed, sloppy, implausible union. I much preferred how they originally officiated their relationship. As it happened in the book, their romance should have been saved for the end. - That torture scene between Lissa and that air user was laughably bad. I'm sorry. The best he could do was blow into her ear? I know he's an air user, but it just looked so ridiculous. - Such a minor nitpick, but why the fuck was Rose hugging Christian and acting so chummy with him as they were exiting the cathedral? Yes, Rose accepts Christian by then, but she's still very wary of him and certainly doesn't warm up to him very much until book three. -The Strigoi were...incredibly underwhelming. What happened to their acute senses? Their accelerated movements? Their enhanced combat? Their extreme barbarism? Aside from the red eyes and chalk white skin, nothing really stood out about them to me. They just looked like crazed Moroi. Certainly not the vicious, otherworldly subhuman monsters I envisioned. Although I must admit that Strigoi Lissa looked pretty awesome. - Claire Foy should have been cast as Natasha Ozera rather than Sonya Karp in my personal opinion, but that isn't to say she's a bad Sonya either. - Was Lissa's heightened compulsion even explained? The Ugly: - The dialogue. Some lines were on-point, whereas others were just...excruciatingly cheesy or cringeworthyly delivered. This line, for just one example, comes to mind: "They say Dimitri is a God, but I'm an aetheist. An atheist with a big gun." - The pacing was horrible to say the least. Every plot point was entirely too rushed and made the whole plot seem disjointed and loosely woven in comparison to the fluid storytelling of the original source material, all which very much lessened the believability factor of many plot points. When the film doesn't once stop to take a breather at any point, it quickly loses its momentum and any emotional impact that goes with it. - As I've already said: Sarah Hyland was brilliant as Moroi Natalie, but as Strigoi Natalie? Not so much. - I already said I loved Lucy's portrayal of Lissa and I meant it, but she barely sold Lissa's depression and emotional trauma over the violent deaths of the animals and Victor's betrayal. There was no point in this film where she seemed as broken, traumatized, and frightened as she was described to be in the book. - The almost sex scene between Rose and Dimitri was terribly executed to say the least. The way it was shot, made Rose look like a shallow, horny school girl with a crush. I understand it panned out exactly the same way in the novel, but what the movie scene lacked was the introspective insight into Rose's thoughts and the conflicted emotions warring inside of her from the book scene, which better explains her actions. The movie scene, in it's complete lack of an explanation as to why Rose suddenly has forgotten all about rescuing Lissa and is jumping Dimitri's bones instead until the very end when the only exposition given is a two second nod to the aphrodisiac must have looked downright confusing to viewers that have not read the books. Rather than that gratuitous montage of Romitri getting it on, more time could have been put towards the film explaining that the aphrodisiac hanging around Rose's neck was causing the both of them to behave that way and of course, greater insight into Dimitri's fear of the ramifications. - One thing that particularly killed this movie for me was its failure to capture one of my favorite aspects of the series, which is Rose and Dimitri's love story. There was no chemistry between him and Rose that remotely sold their romance for me and I think that has a lot to do with the casting of Dimitri's character, the condensation of their love story, and the utter lack of chemistry between the two actors. Dimitri was just plain miscast. I do not understand why they casted an actor that looks so old. The character is supposed to be what, 22? 23? This actor looks in his 30s. And though yes, Dimitri is very stern and serious - especially in the beginning - I never imagined him to be so...lifeless and robotic as this actor played him. I can't say it was all bad though. Some of their interactions did give me feels and the way Dimitri called Rose Roza - just HEARING it - put a smile on my face, but for the most part, I just wasn't feeling it and that greatly affected this movie experience for me because Romitri is one of my biggest book OTPs. - What even was that ending? Rose flipping Dimitri on his back and thus their final interaction ending on a lighthearted note instead of a bittersweet sullen note that conveys Rose's sadness over Dimitri's rejection and their shared wish that they could be together just completely downplayed the meaningfulness of their feelings for each other.